<p>The work of Ana Maria Tavares is strongly influenced by Oscar Niemeyer and other utopian modernist Brazilian architects. Her sculpture is made of metallic material taken from building interiors and product design, sliding along the border between design and fine art. Airports and departure lounges are a recurrent theme in her work, places that symbolize exit from everyday life, getting ready to depart, floating, meditating, and de co-existence of the real and the virtual. Strategies for Enchantment (2001), which was created by placing a piano, mirror and seats in a glass-walled room, and Middelburg Airport Lounge with Parede Niemeyer (2001), in which Tavares used mirrors and video projection to transform De Vleeshal in the Netherlands into a futuristic airport lounge, are examples of how she has transformed sites while making the most of their features.
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Ana Maria Tavares finds her source of inspiration in the architectural grammar of the modern city. She employs materials such as steel, glass and mirrors to make structures that resemble street furniture or architectural fittings…

Ana Maria Tavares finds her source of inspiration in the architectural grammar of the modern city. She employs materials such as steel, glass and mirrors to make structures that resemble street furniture or architectural fittings. Recontextualised in her installations, such motifs come to form puzzles or mazes for the visitor to explore. Tavares is interested in the impractical possibilities that are locked inside functional objects and, in this sense, her practice stands at the border of sculpture and design…